Linguistic Inquiry

Department of Linguistics, School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, Queen Mary, University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom. E-mail: p.d.elbourne@qmul.ac.uk

Abstract

This article analyzes three phenomena that are troublesome for some theories of ellipsis: the existence of sloppy readings when the relevant pronouns cannot possibly be bound; cases where the antecedent of ellipsis does itself contain an ellipsis site, but in resolving the larger ellipsis the interpretation understood at the ellipsis site in the antecedent is not used; and cases where an ellipsis site draws upon material from two or more separate antecedents. These cases are accounted for by an analysis of silent VPs and NPs that makes them into higher-order definite descriptions that can be bound into.